25 Must-Read Black Authors

Forbes

29-03-2025

James Baldwin poses while at home in Saint Paul de Vence, South of France.
Black authors have long added a distinct perspective to the global literary discussion. By using their voices to tell the powerful and sometimes painful stories of the past and present, they have collectively given readers a peak into the Black human experience. From classic works by African American authors like Toni Morrison and James Baldwin to contemporary bestsellers by Roxane Gay and Ta-Nehisi Coates, books by Black authors continue to engage, educate and challenge readers.
Whether their works are examining history, social justice, love or history, these Black authors have created an impact on how the world reacts to and understands Black stories.
Black authors have contributed to the literature landscape across centuries, spanning from the Harlem Renaissance to contemporary bestsellers. This list includes influential writers across genres, including literary fiction, historical fiction, science fiction, memoirs and poetry. Writers on this list have left a lasting impact on their respective genres and this ranking considers each author's influence, commercial success and cultural impact. Many of these books have won prestigious awards like the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award and Nobel Prize in Literature. Others have become thought leaders around discussions on race, equity and justice.
Brandon Taylor is a contemporary African American writer born and raised in Alabama. He initially pursued a career in science, enrolling in graduate biochemistry degree before transitioning to writing. Taylor's writing often examines race, queer identity and academia. His debut novel, Real Life (2020), was a Booker Prize finalist and widely acclaimed for its portrayal of a Black, gay graduate student dealing with microaggressions and isolation in a predominantly white university. His award-winning work, including Filthy Animals (2021), is a collection of interlaced short stories exploring Black masculinity and desire. He does not exclusively write novels, as his body of work also includes short stories and essays. Taylor has two upcoming nonfiction books scheduled for release.
Famous quote: 'There comes a time when you have to stop being who you were, when you have to let the past stay where it is, frozen and impossible. You have to let it go if you're going to keep moving, if you're going to survive, because the past doesn't need a future.' - Brandon Taylor, Real Life
Where to read Brandon Taylor's Works: Penguin Random House
Although originally from Limbe in Cameroon, Imbolo Mbue became a naturalized American and is often recognized within African American literary circles. She moved to the United States to study at Rutgers University before earning a master's degree at Columbia University. Her acclaimed debut novel, Behold the Dreamers (2016), was inspired by the recession and the glaring disparity in socioeconomic class that it exposed, especially between the lower and upper class, within the immigrant experience. The novel won the PEN/Faulkner Award and was an Oprah's Book Club selection. Mbue's work is primarily centered around social justice, socio-economic class and the pursuit of the American Dream. Besides novels, Mbue also continues to write short stories. She lives in New York City.
Famous quote: 'People don't want to open their eyes and see the Truth because the illusion suits them. As long as they're fed whatever lies they want to hear they're happy, because the Truth means nothing to them.' - Imbolo Mbue, Behold the Dreamers
Where to read Imbolo Mbue's Works: Penguin Random House
Cameroonian author Imbolo Mbue poses in Paris.
Born and raised in Atlanta, Tayari Jones is best known for writing about family, love and racial injustice. She studied at Spelman College, the University of Iowa and Arizona State University. Her most famous work, An American Marriage (2018), won the Women's Prize for Fiction as well as the NAACP prize for fiction and was selected by Oprah's Book Club. The novel follows the lives of an Atlanta-based Black couple, Celestial and Roy, whose lives are torn apart when Roy is falsely convicted of a rape and incarcerated. Jones has also written Silver Sparrow and Leaving Atlanta, which focus on difficult family dynamics and the Black Southern experience. Jones primarily writes novels but has also contributed essays and taught writing courses at Cornell University and Emory University.
Famous quote: 'But home isn't where you land; home is where you launch. You can't pick your home any more than you can choose your family. In poker, you get five cards. Three of them you can swap out, but two are yours to keep: family and native land.' - Tayari Jones, An American Marriage
Where to read Tayari Jones' works: Hachette Book Group
Jason Reynolds is a bestselling author of young adult fiction and poetry. Born in Washington, D.C., he studied at the University of Maryland but soon found his calling outside traditional education. Reynolds' books, such as Long Way Down and Ghost, focus on Black youth experiencing systemic racism, poverty and violence. He found the inspiration for most of his early work in rap music, which formed the basis for some of his earlier-published works. His lyrical writing resonates with young readers, making him one of the most influential Black authors in contemporary children's literature. While he is most known for writing novels, Reynolds has also written poetry and short stories.
Famous quote: 'If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.' - Jason Reynolds, All American Boys
Where to read Jason Reynolds' works: Simon & Schuster
Jason Reynolds for The Washington Post Magazine's "Just Asking" feature.
Jesmyn Ward is a Berkeley, California-born writer who has earned her spot as one of the most powerful voices in contemporary Southern literature. When she was three years old, her parents returned back to DeLisle, Mississippi, their hometown, where she was bullied in school and eventually experienced the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. That experience, along with the death of her younger brother, inspired her writing career. Ward earned her MFA from the University of Michigan and later became the first Black woman to win two National Book Awards. Salvage the Bones (2011), her breakthrough sophomore novel, is a metaphoric analysis of poverty, race and survival, centered around a teenage girl in a rural Mississippi town bracing for a storm. She followed this with Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017), a ghostly road novel about mass incarceration and the bonds that Black families share. Ward's work is often compared to Faulkner's in its deep sense of place and history. Ward continues to primarily write novels.
Famous quote: 'Sorrow is food swallowed too quickly, caught in the throat, making it nearly impossible to breathe.' - Jesmyn Ward, Sing, Unburied, Sing
Where to read Jesmyn Ward: Simon & Schuster
Colson Whitehead is one of the most prominent Black novelists of modern literature. Born in New York City in 1969, the Harvard graduate started his career in journalism before deciding to pursue fictional novel writing. His Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Underground Railroad (2016) offers a bold reimagining of American slavery by changing the metaphorical escape route into a literal underground train. He won another Pulitzer for The Nickel Boys (2019), a moving story inspired by real-life events that took place at Dozier School for Boys in Florida. Whitehead is known for using sharp wit and historical insight in a way that incorporates satire with powerful social commentary. While he's best known for his novels, he also writes essays.
Famous quote: 'We must believe in our souls that we are somebody, that we are significant, that we are worthful, and we must walk the streets of life every day with this sense of dignity and this sense of somebody-ness.'- Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys
Where to read Colson Whitehead: Penguin Random House
Haitian-American writer Roxane Gay has become a tour de force in feminist literature and social critique. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1974, Gay earned a PhD in Rhetoric and Technical Communication at Michigan Technological University in 2010 and has taught at several prestigious universities, including Purdue and Yale. Her New York Times bestseller Bad Feminist (2014) is a collection of essays that looks at the dynamic intersection of race, gender, sexuality and pop culture with a sharp and personal perspective. She has also written the novel An Untamed State, which examines sexual violence and trauma, as well as Hunger, an honest memoir about body image and personal identity. Gay is known for her unfiltered, candid writing style and strong political engagement. Apart from novels, Gay is also known for her short stories and essays.
Famous quote: 'When feminism falls short of our expectations, we decide the problem is with feminism rather than with the flawed people who act in the name of the movement.' - Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist: Essays
Where to read Roxane Gay: Roxane Gay Website
New York Times Best-Selling author Roxane Gay celebrates her two novels, "Not That Bad" and ... More "Hunger" at Barnes & Noble at The Grove in Los Angeles.
Walter Mosley is best known for reshaping crime fiction by centering plots around Black protagonists. Born in Los Angeles in 1952, he was raised in a mixed-race household and studied political science before turning to writing. His debut novel, Devil in a Blue Dress (1990), introduced the character of Easy Rawlins, a Black private detective navigating post-WWII Los Angeles. The book was later adapted into a film starring Denzel Washington. In 2020, Mosley was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, making him the first Black man to receive the honor. Mosley has written across multiple genres, including science fiction and literary fiction.
Famous quote: 'We are not trapped or locked up in these bones. No, no. We are free to change. And love changes us. And if we can love one another, we can break open the sky.' - Walter Mosley, Blue Light
Where to read Walter Mosley: Simon & Schuster
Percival Everett is a postmodern literary icon who was born in 1956 in Fort Gordon, Georgia and is known for his experimental and genre-bending work. His novel Erasure (2001) is a biting satire of the publishing industry's expectations of Black writers, following an intellectual author forced to write a stereotypical 'Black' novel to gain commercial success. Everett's works often challenge racial and literary conventions to incorporate humor with philosophical questions. Some of his other works include I Am Not Sidney Poitier (2009) and The Trees (2021), which was shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize. His 2024 novel James also won the Kirkus Prize and the National Book Award for Fiction. Everett still writes across multiple genres, including metafiction, western fiction, mysteries, thrillers, satire and philosophical fiction
Famous quote: 'Belief has nothing to do with truth.' - Percival Everett, James
Where to read Percival Everett: Penguin Random House
Toni Cade Bambara was a writer, activist and educator who used fiction as a form of resistance, centering Black voices, particularly those of women, in her work. Born in New York City in 1939, she grew up in a politically engaged household that encouraged her passion for social justice. She studied at Queens College and later taught at schools like Rutgers University and Spelman College, where she mentored young Black writers. Her novel The Salt Eaters (1980) is a layered inquiry into mental health, spirituality and the healing power of Black community support. She is also celebrated for her short story collections Gorilla, My Love and The Sea Birds Are Still Alive, which capture the grit, humor and everyday struggles of Black life. While she was alive, Bambara worked in film and television, directing documentaries that tackled issues of racial injustice, poverty and gender inequality. She remained a committed cultural critic who also wrote nonfiction and essays until she died in 1995.
Famous quote: 'Words are to be taken seriously. I try to take seriously acts of language. Words set things in motion. I've seen them doing it. Words set up atmospheres, electrical fields, charges. I've felt them doing it. Words conjure. I try not to be careless about what I utter, write, sing. I'm careful about what I give voice to.' - Toni Cade Bambara
Where to read Toni Cade Bambara: Simon & Schuster
Born in 1908 in Mississippi, Richard Wright was an author whose work analyzed racism, class struggle and the psychological burden of systemic oppression in America. Wright was raised in the Jim Crow South and experienced the hardship and poverty that helped to define his work. His seminal novel, Native Son (1940), follows the gutting story of Bigger Thomas, a young Black man whose life is defined by systemic oppression that ultimately leads to violence and tragedy. The novel was a commercial and critical success that triggered a lot of conversations about race and injustice. Wright's memoir, Black Boy (1945), further explored racial trauma in the South and his early experiences with racism, literature and self-education. Throughout his career, he experimented with several literary forms, including short stories, essays and philosophical fiction, as seen in The Outsider (1953) and Black Power (1954). Wright's works remain central to understanding the systemic, subdued racism embedded in American history.
Famous quote: 'Whenever my environment had failed to support or nourish me, I had clutched at books...'- Richard Wright, Black Boy
Where to read Richard Wright: Penguin Random House
Born in Oklahoma City in 1914, Ralph Ellison originally studied music at Tuskegee Institute before turning to literature, a pivot that would help to redefine American fiction. His iconic debut novel, Invisible Man (1952), was well received in the literary scene with searing insight into race, identity and individuality in a segregated America. The novel's unnamed Black narrator navigates a society that refuses to see him, and Ellison's lyrical, jazz-influenced prose invites readers into what seems like a psychological maze of alienation and resistance. Invisible Man won the National Book Award and remains one of the most important American novels of the 20th century. Although Ellison never published another novel in his lifetime, his essays, short stories and posthumously released work, Juneteenth, cemented his status as a literary icon. His vision was very radical and very human, a reminder that to be seen is to be understood.
Famous quote: 'When I discover who I am, I'll be free.' - Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
Where to Read Ralph Ellison: Penguin Random House
Zora Neale Hurston was ahead of her time and ours. Born in 1891 in Notasulga, Alabama, and her family moved to Eatonville, Florida, an all-Black town, shortly after she was born. During her time, Hurston captured the richness of Black Southern life with anthropological precision and poetic flair. As an important figure of the Harlem Renaissance, she studied at Barnard College under Franz Boas and also at Columbia University. As a pioneer in cultural anthropology, Hurston was an expert at infusing her fiction with folklore, dialect and the everyday music of Black life. Her masterpiece, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), was initially dismissed by male peers, but has since become one of the most beloved novels in American literature. Janie Crawford, the novel's free-spirited protagonist, challenged literary norms and opened the door for Black women's interior lives to take center stage. Today, Hurston is celebrated not only for her fiction but also for her anthropological work and essays.
Famous quote: 'I love myself when I am laughing… and then again when I am looking mean and impressive.'- Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Where to Read Zora Neale Hurston: HarperCollins Publishers
Alice Walker's impact is undeniable across pop culture and the literary ecosystem. Born in 1944 in rural Georgia, Walker came of age during the Civil Rights Movement and used her writing as a tool for liberation. Her most celebrated work, The Color Purple (1982), is a haunting, redemptive story about Black womanhood, resilience and spiritual rebirth that is notable, specifically for its surgical narrative precision. The novel won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for its powerful illustration of love, trauma and redemption . Walker coined the term 'womanist' to define a form of feminism that centers the experience of Black women, a concept that repeats itself through all of her work. Apart from fiction, she's written poetry, essays and memoirs that confront everything from systemic racism to global human rights violations. Walker's voice is intimate and defiant, unflinchingly honest and always searching for beauty in the broken.
Famous quote: 'The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.' - Alice Walker
Where to Read Alice Walker: Simon & Schuster
James Baldwin is one of the most iconic Black writers because he had the gift of turning words into mercurial elements: fluid, charged and impossible to pin down. Born in Harlem in 1924, Baldwin became one of the most influential voices of the 20th century, using fiction, essays and public speeches to dissect the soul of America and offer important commentary while doing so. His breakout novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), chronicled a young boy's spiritual awakening in a Harlem church. But it was his nonfiction Notes of a Native Son that turned Baldwin into a moral compass for a country on the edge of racial reckoning.
Baldwin lived much of his adult life in France, yet he remained profoundly connected to the civil rights movement, returning often to speak truth to power with unmatched eloquence. His work was resolute in its critique of white supremacy yet grounded in an aching love for humanity.
Famous quote: 'Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.' - James Baldwin
Where to Read James Baldwin: Penguin Random House
Born in 1944 in Birmingham, Alabama, Angela Davis became a leading figure in Black liberation, feminist theory and prison abolition. Though best known for her activism, Davis is also an accomplished writer whose work challenged and continues to challenge people about how to think about justice, resistance and the carceral state. Her 1981 book, Women, Race & Class, remains a foundational text in intersectional feminism, studying how systems of oppression overlap and reinforce one another. In Are Prisons Obsolete? she poses one of the most radical questions of our time: What if we didn't need prisons at all? Davis's prose is precise and uncompromising, yet always tethered to hope. She writes not just to expose injustice but to imagine a world beyond it.
Famous quote: 'I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.' - Angela Davis
Where to Read Angela Davis: Penguin Random House
Maya Angelou lived through history and used it to write poetry. Born in St. Louis in 1928 and raised in the segregated South, Angelou became a global icon of literary elegance and personal grit. Her autobiographical chef-d'oeuvre, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), shattered conventions with its raw, poetic depiction of trauma, survival and Black girlhood. Angelou's work spanned genres, including memoir, poetry, plays and speeches. She moved through the world with the poise of someone who had earned every word. Her voice, both on the page and behind the podium, offered Black women a mirror of their own power and complexity. She was nominated for a Pulitzer, recited poetry at President Clinton's inauguration, and raised the bar for what it meant to be a public intellectual. Angelou passed away in 2014.
Famous quote: 'I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.' - Maya Angelou
Where to Read Maya Angelou: Penguin Random House
Dr. Maya Angelou attends her 82nd birthday party with friends and family at her home in ... More Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Ta-Nehisi Coates gained popularity in 2008 as one of the clearest voices confronting race and power in modern America. Born in Baltimore in 1975, Coates sharpened his craft as a journalist before releasing his 2015 book Between the World and Me, a personal letter to his teenage son about the realities of being Black in America. The book would go on to win the National Book Award in 2015, a sign of his critical acclaim. Coates writes with clarity and historical depth, incorporating memoir with political analysis and cultural critique. Whether he's analyzing the legacy of redlining or writing the Black Panther comics for Marvel, Coates refuses easy answers and insists on truth. His work lingers, provokes and demands we look again. Coates is still writing and recently released a compilation of essays called The Message.
Famous quote: 'Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others.' - Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me
Where to Read Ta-Nehisi Coates: Penguin Random House
Born in 1934 in Harlem to West Indian immigrant parents, Lorde called herself a 'Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,' each identity a revolutionary stance. Her poetry and prose cut through silence like a blade, exploring the intersections of race, gender, sexuality and power with radical honesty. Books like Sister Outsider and The Cancer Journals went beyond just challenging the systems of oppression and further demanded that we examine the violence of silence, even within ourselves. Lorde's work is both intensely personal and fiercely political and her legacy has remained a blueprint for living, loving and resisting with intention. She passed away in 1992 at 58 years old.
Famous quote: 'Your silence will not protect you.' - Audre Lorde
Where to Read Audre Lorde: Penguin Random House
bell hooks reimagined what it meant to write about love in her work. Born Gloria Jean Watkins in Hopkinsville, Kentucky in 1952, she took her pen name from her great-grandmother and chose to spell it lowercase to keep the focus on her message, not her identity. Because her writing was fiercely feminist and deeply accessible, it opened up the conversation around patriarchy, race, capitalism and the classroom. In books like Teaching to Transgress (1994), All About Love (1999) and Feminism is for Everybody (2000), hooks argued that love, instead of being just an emotion, is an ethic, a practice and a political act. She challenged readers to dismantle systems, but also to heal, to nurture and to choose justice over domination. hooks passed away in 2021, but her work continues to remain relevant to the ever-evolving concept of love.
Famous quote: 'Love is an action, never simply a feeling.' - bell hooks
Where to Read bell hooks: Simon & Schuster
Langston Hughes was the voice of the Harlem Renaissance. Born in Missouri in 1901, Hughes was a poet of the people; his verses came alive with the rhythm of jazz, the pain of segregation and the stubborn beauty of everyday Black life. With poems like 'The Negro Speaks of Rivers' and 'Harlem,' Hughes eloquently captured a nation's longing with lyrical clarity. Hughes also wrote plays, essays, novels and newspaper columns, always advocating for Black dignity, pride and visibility. His language was simple yet carried the weight of generations before him. He gave voice to those the world refused to hear. Hughes passed away in 1967.
Famous quote: 'I swear to the Lord I still can't see / Why Democracy means / Everybody but me.' - Langston Hughes
Where to Read Langston Hughes: Simon & Schuster
Octavia Butler was part of a league of writers who helped define science fiction as a genre. Born in 1947 in Pasadena, California, Butler was a shy child who turned to books to make sense of a world that rarely reflected her. She became the first Black woman to gain widespread recognition in science fiction, a genre she used to analyze race, gender, power and survival in ways no one else dared to. Her novels, like Kindred, Parable of the Sower (1993) and Dawn (1987), went beyond being imaginative but were also prophetic. Butler foresaw environmental collapse, authoritarian politics and the fracturing of society, but always through the perspective of human characters who also happened to be greatly flawed. Butler passed away in 2006.
Famous quote: 'All that you touch, you change. All that you change changes you. The only lasting truth is change.' - Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower
Where to Read Octavia Butler: Hachette Book Group
Toni Morrison helped to mold the very essence of American literature. Born in Lorain, Ohio in 1931, Morrison began her career as an editor before becoming the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Her novels Beloved (1987), The Bluest Eye (1970), Song of Solomon (1977) and Sula (1973) were canonical, yet radical. They looked into the legacies of slavery, the psychic cost of racism and the richness of Black identity with unmatched chasm. Morrison's layered work proved that she wrote for Black people, not merely to explain Black life but to honor it. Her work insists on the beauty, complexity and interiority of Black characters in a world that too often flattens and attempts to stifle them. Morrison passed away in 2019.
Famous quote: 'If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.' - Toni Morrison
Where to Read Toni Morrison: Penguin Random House
Before there was a Civil Rights Movement, there was Frederick Douglass. Born into slavery in Maryland in 1818, Douglass escaped, learned how to read and became one of the most powerful orators and writers of the 19th century. His autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), remains one of the most searing indictments of American slavery ever written. Douglass was not just a witness to Black history but also one of its most prominent literary architects. He advised presidents, campaigned for women's rights and never stopped advocating for Black freedom and dignity. Over a century later, his words are still electric, pulsing with urgency and hope. Douglas died in 1895.
Famous quote: 'It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.' - Frederick Douglass
Where to Read Frederick Douglass: Simon & Schuster
Illustrated image of American social reformer and abolitionist Frederick Douglass,
W.E.B. Du Bois was the mind that shaped a century. Born in 1868 in Massachusetts, Du Bois was the first Black man to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard. As a scholar, activist and writer, Du Bois would dedicate his talents to helping others view the intersectionality of race, democracy and identity in ways that were easy to understand. His masterpiece, The Souls of Black Folk (1903), introduced the concept of 'double consciousness,' the sense of always seeing oneself through the eyes of a racist society. Du Bois combined sociology, philosophy and history with a lyrical, yet prophetic voice that made his work even more compelling. He co-founded the NAACP, edited The Crisis and never stopped fighting for a more just, educated and liberated Black America.
Famous quote: 'The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.' - W.E.B. Du Bois
Where to Read W.E.B. Du Bois: Simon & Schuster
Bottom Line
Black authors have shaped the soul of American literature while challenging how people understand, approach and view injustice. From Baldwin's searing truths to Morrison's poetic influence, their words are time capsuled that have told important stories that would have otherwise faded into history.
Beverly Jenkins is one of the most well-known Black romance novelists. Her historical romances like Destiny's Embrace and Forbidden spotlight Black love stories set in carefully researched 19th-century settings, centering passion, resilience and freedom.
Kennedy Ryan is another powerhouse who has mixed contemporary love with real-world issues in novels like Queen Move and the Hoops series.
Toni Morrison is a celebrated Nobel laureate whose novels like Beloved and The Bluest Eye are required reading for anyone who cares about beauty, trauma and truth.
Octavia Butler broke every mold in science fiction, using the genre to explore power, identity, and survival.
Maya Angelou gave voice to generations of Black women through her poetry and memoirs, particularly I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
The Color Purple by Alice Walker is a gut-wrenching, triumphant story of sisterhood and survival that won both the Pulitzer and the National Book Award.
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a raw, urgent letter to his son, and to America, about what it means to move through the world in a Black body.
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead, based on a real-life reform school, is a haunting reminder of the brutal legacy of racial injustice.